DC Comics- Who’s Minding The Multiverse?

“With Great Power comes Great Responsibility”

I guess no one currently working in DC Comics editorial read Marvel’s Amazing Fantasy #15. Nor do they apply this anecdote to their business philosophy.

I guess that’s why DC Comics publishing division is such a mess these days.

But according to many who have quit working for DC like George Perez, John Rozum, and Rob Liefeld, Dan Didio isn’t responsible for the mess DC’s publishing division has become over the last 10 years.

Neither is Jim Lee.

Neither is Goeff Johns.

Neither is Bob Harras.

Even though they all hold executive titles.

If they’re not responsible for the product coming out of DC Comics or the direction of the publishing division, who’s in charge here?

I thought that Editor-in-Chiefs and Co-publishers were leadership positions. I thought that director of whatever executive position Goeff Johns has is was a leader ship position. That they were ultimately responsible for the comics being published and the direction DC Comics was supposed to go in.

But according to many comic fans and industry pros that’s not the case.

Er…who’s minding the Multiverse?

How can a publisher run if there’s no one providing editorial oversight? How do writers and artists get stories approved if there’s no editorial review? How do books get printed if there’s no editorial approval? How does anyone get paid if no one is responsible for signing the checks?

Seriously, how can a multibillion dollar brand run if no one is accountable? How can product get published if no one is responsible for it? How do all these press releases promoting comics with Gay Green Lanterns, Arab Green Lanterns, and Superman & Wonder Woman having a romance pass through to the media?

According to this logic, all these alleged executives are just collecting six-figure checks and DC Comics is just on autopilot. That a secret cabal of assistant editors and junior editors have more power than people who are supposed to be executives.

If I were running Time Warner, that’d give me more reason to fire them. Clean House from top to bottom.

How can an EXECUTIVE let SUBORDINATES tell them how to do business? That is WEAK and INEFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT and LEADERSHIP.

It’s not what anyone would expect from a division of a multi-national corporation or one of its international brands.

If someone has a title of Executive they’re supposed to be a LEADER. They’re supposed to be supervising people. Taking responsibility for the actions of their employees and taking responsibility for the product that comes out of their division.

Now I’ve been in self-publishing since 2002 and the buck always stopped with one person: ME.

And I’ve made my mistakes. My first two books Isis and The Cassandra Cookbook had their fair share of typos.

But I take responsibility for my mistakes. After listening to my readers I worked out those kinks. And by the time I released All About Marilyn in 2009, The Temptation of John Haynes in 2011, and All About Nikki-The Fabulous First Season in 2011, the errors had been drastically reduced. Not eliminated, but drastically reduced. Eventually, I hope to release a title with next to no typos.

Now if a one-man self-publisher like myself can manage a catalog of four paperbacks and a growing catalog of 20+ digital titles can take responsibility for my products, why can’t four people supervise a bullpen of hundreds of artists and writers over 52 titles? Why can’t they delegate responsibility? Why can’t they hold their subordinates accountable for their actions? Why can’t they have the integrity to say the buck stops with them before asking fans for their money?

I mean, all four of these guys combined have more education and experience than I have. I’m just a struggling brother learning what I can wherever I can. Some of these guys like Jim Lee have run their own publishing divisions like Wildstorm in the past. Others Like Bob Harras were editors-in-Chief for an entire company like Marvel Comics back in the 90’s.

But when it comes to running DC Comics they come across like a bunch of stooges. How can Tim Drake NEVER be a Robin when the Batman continuity was supposed to remain intact after the New 52 relaunch? And where did those new costumes come from in recent Batman comics? Why wouldn’t management communicate with staff before they interact with the public on something like this?

If I were running DC Comics and a member of my staff made a statement like the Tim Drake one, HEADS WOULD ROLL. That just shows NO ONE is communicating or trying to communicate.

That one statement was just about as embarrassing as Grant Morrison and George Perez not being briefed on each others’ titles for Superman, DC Comics’ FLAGSHIP character.

A new DC universe and the same old editorial fuck ups get to keep their jobs where they continue to make the same mistakes in a brand new world.

If this doesn’t show anyone the power of White Privilege in the American job market, nothing will.

If someone made that mistake regarding flagship characters and I was supervising DC Comics TimeWarner bosses would have me fired and publicly humiliated. Because a Black Man wouldn’t be allowed to make these kinds of mistakes over and over again in America. He’d have to work twice as hard and make sure the books met a level of excellence to be considered competent by Warner Executives and White Male comic fans.

But these four stooges continue to be given an opportunity to destroy a multibillion dollar brand because of the color of their skin. 

Again, who’s minding the Multiverse? Where is the LEADERSHIP? Where are the STANDARDS? Isn’t this supposed to be the division of a multibillion dollar corporation?

Shawn has to get himself a job at DC Comics. It seems to be a great job. I can basically fuck up for years, get paid huge amounts of money, and never be responsible for anything. That’s the sweetest gig since the Post Office.

Only most postal workers are more competent than most of DC’s editorial team.

Seriously, working at DC Comics today seems to be about the same as working in Civil Service. I bet they have fat Black chicks with stank attitudes manning the reception desk just like Civil Service jobs have too. Along with employees who come to work…Whenever. And Bitch-Made™ people in management who duck and dodge and send people to do their dirty work but can’t go face-to-face.

That’s what makes this a shame. A division of a multi-billion dollar corporation mismanaged to the point where all professionalism has flown out the window. Where a standard of excellence has been replaced with a culture of mediocrity. When did DC Comics become the U.S Government?

I take that back. I wouldn’t want a job at DC Comics. I take pride in my writing. I take pride in the books I publish. I take pride in the blogs I write. I have integrity to stand behind my work and to take responsibility for any of the content I produce. If it’s got an SJS DIRECT label on it, I’ll do my VERY BEST make sure it meets a standard of excellence and high quality.

I feel I owe that to my readers. I feel they deserve my greatest efforts for their money. That’s why I work late at night, weekends, and even early mornings to make sure that my work is the best it can be.

I work harder for peoples’ 99 cents than all the people at DC Comics do for $4.00.

That’s embarrassing.

And what’s even more embarrassing is that most people will pay $4.00 for that DC Comic because they take for granted it’s a corporate label. But those same people will pass by my 99 cent eBook or my $15.00 self-published paperback thinking the quality is lower than the DC Comic.

When they’re just about the same.

If the employees of a publisher can’t hold themselves accountable for the publications they produce, then they shouldn’t be a publishing anything. If they can’t value the customer to stand behind their products and take responsibility for them, then they shouldn’t ask for their hard-earned money.

With great power comes great responsibility. I wish someone at DC Comics would realize that.

TRICKED BY A SIMP

All over there are these bitter dejected women running around telling their stories about the player who played them. Torrid tales about men who abandoned them with kids, left them with bills, or who broke up with them by slipping out in the middle of the night with a note on the nightstand.

The sad thing is they don’t know they were tricked by a SIMP.

Here’s the truth: Players don’t take advantage of women.

Players are usually up front about everything they do. A player usually tells a woman  his intentions from minute one. And he’ll disclose the fact that he’s available to other ladies. Whether she gets involved with him is up to her.

And when a player gets involved with a woman, he has the cash to cover himself and take care of his business. If he steps to a woman he knows his position and he knows what direction he wants to go with her from minute one.

If the woman agrees to a relationship with a true player she usually knows where she stands. She knows what he's offering to her and she knows what she's getting into from minute one with him.

A Simp on the other hand is dishonest. When he courts a woman he spends lots of dollars to impress a woman. And along with the dollars he spends the money he’s making big promises to her to get her into bed.

Unfortunately, the Simp’s mouth often writes checks his ass can’t cash.

And when a Simp gets caught up in a bad situation with a woman like getting her pregnant, or she starts asking him to keep all those promises he made to get her into his bed that’s when he heads for the door.

What most women don’t understand is that the Simp isn’t running for the door not because he got the woman pregnant, or he can’t fulfill his promises, but because he’s afraid the truth will be found out about who he is.

And the truth is that a Simp is a LIAR. While he may be the dude flashing cash, wearing designer clothes and promising the high life to get with the women he dreams of, in reality he’s the dude who can barely make the rent on his mama’s basement, asking friends for $20 to ride the bus to work and stealing diabetic ham sandwiches out of the workplace fridge to have money to pay for  his dates.

The sad part is most women can’t tell the difference between a true Player and a Simp.

And that’s how players get a bad name.

Women fall for the Simp game believing his promises of big money and good times and wind up disappointed when they find out their high rolling player is nothing more than a perpetrator.

And instead of owning up to the fact that they fell for the game, they feel ashamed. Embarrassed about the bruise to their egos, they get bitter and angry and blame players.

Not understanding they played themselves by being so greedy.

The truth is that most females who are angry about the bad man are actually angry at themselves. Angry that they let themselves be taken in by the SIMP and his weak game. Angry that their greed blinded them into being taken into bed with a broke loser instead of Prince Charming™

And some are angry that they got left with a baby by this loser and no way to take care of it.

What really enrages these women is the fact that they weren't as smart as they thought they were. Most thought they could get some gifts out of this guy, get some money out of him and broom him to the curb. Others thought they were going to be taken care of for the rest of their lives when Child support kicked in.

These foolish women all left with egg on their face when they found out they were outsmarted by the fool.

Some of them never forgive themselves for falling for the game. That’s why they’re so bitter. So angry. So hateful of all men.

When in actuality it was the kinds of men she was choosing to get involved with and why she got involved with them. Her intentions were just as greasy as the Simps. She was out to get the cash, he was out to get the ass.

Both get what they deserved.

Ladies, don’t blame the players. Their game is usually tight. If you get played, chances are you got tricked by a Simp.

Why 70 percent of Black women are single Part 2- The Social engineering of

Why are 70 percent of Black women single? Is it because there’s a shortage of “good” Black men?  Or is it because Black women have been taught to believe that their men aren’t “good” enough?

Here are the facts:

70 percent of Black women born after 1970 come from single parent households headed by a female.

70 percent of Black women born after 1970 have had little or no social interaction with their fathers.

70 percent of Black women born after 1970 have minimal positive male reinforcement from other males in the community.

With the majority of Black girls born after 1970 being raised in single-parent homes, they were never socialized to interact with Black men. Worse, these girls constantly heard negative statements about Black men from their mothers. Statements such as:

“You just like yo no good daddy!”
“That triflin’ nigger.”
“That no good nigger. He ain’t never got a job, always in jail, or stoned out his mind.”
“Fuck that nigger!”
“Niggers ain’t shit!”
“You gonna grow up to be just like yo daddy!”
“Men are dogs.”
“All they want is the pussy.”

These types of misandristic statements reinforced the idea in the minds of young Black girls that Black males weren’t valuable as people. That they weren’t deserving of love or capable of being loved. That Black men weren’t deserving of their trust.

Without a positive male in the household there to counter this negative misinformation and represent an image of what a real Black man represented, many Black girls began to believe what their mothers said about Black men to be true. So they never understood why Black men were important to them or why Black men were valuable as people. Nor did they understand that men were deserving of love or capable of expressing love towards them.

Little girls who grow up without their fathers don’t know how to have healthy social relationships with boys. They then grow up to be women who don’t know how to have healthy relationships with men.

In their eyes of most women from single parent female headed homes, Black men aren’t people, but objects or tools used to get money out of or utilized for their sexual gratification.

And because most Black women were never taught anything positive about Black men they don’t know the difference between a “good” Black man or a “bad” Black man. In their brainwashed eyes, all Black men are evil.

Which is why 70 percent of Black women are single today.

In the eyes of these miseducated Black women, Black men just aren’t good enough. Not good enough to meet the imaginary standard placed in their minds by their mothers, most of which never had the positive influence of a real Black man to measure it by.

Nor are Black men good enough because Black women measure men by imaginary standards created by White Supremacists and White Feminists from Madison Avenue and Hollywood. As Black women look to the White Supremacist American media to present them with an idealized image of a “good” Black man the standard doesn’t match the realities of manhood in the African American community.

No real Black man can ever meet White Supremacy’s fantasy image of the rich, muscular, handsome, well-educated, professional Black man who is presented to most Black women as the ideal mate.

Especially when the same racists prevent Black men from achieving equal opportunity in the American economic system.

A majority Black women who come from single parent homes only know what their mothers, aunts and grandmothers, have told them about men and what the White Supremacist media has presented to them as an image of Black manhood. These false and negative ideals have since mushroomed into a self-fulfilling prophecy which eventually sabotages the relationships between Black men and Black women.

As little Black girls grow up listening to these horror stories about Black men, they go into their social interactions with Black men most go looking for the worst instead of the best regarding relationships with Black men. Others not poisoned by their mother’s experiences go looking for romanticized fantasies from television, books and other media.

These pre-programmed mindsets are the main reason why many Black women follow in the footsteps of their mothers and grandmothers getting involved with drug dealers, ex-cons, thugs and other lowlifes.

Why the majority of Black women wind up fulfilling the self-fulfilling prophecy of getting involved with “no good, triflin’ Black men” instead of having healthy relationships with good, loving, caring Black men.

Most Black women have been brainwashed to believe these types of men are “boring” or “weak” when in actuality these are the Alpha males and true leaders in the Black community.

Thanks to the social engineering of White Supremacy and White Feminism, most Black women have bought into an idealized image of Black manhood and have been tricked into believing that the true Black man is irresponsible, incapable of being the leader of his family and the protector of his home.

When one takes a look at Black male female relationships objectively and apply some logic to the situation, they soon see the flaws in this social engineering and conditioning.

How can a Black woman find a “good” Black man when she’s been raised from birth to believe that Black men are “no good”? How a Black woman she know what the characteristics of a “good” Black man are when she’s never seen them modeled in front of her as a child? How can a Black woman know how to have a healthy relationship with a Black man when she’s never seen her mother or grandmother participate in one?

How can a Black woman see a man as someone who is deserving of love or being capable of loving her when most of the stories she hears about from her mother and grandmother about men abusing them or abandoning them? How does she learn to value Black men when her mother, aunt, and grandmother often refuse to support or appreciate the hard work the men in their lives do for them? How does she learn how to love Black men when television, radio, literature and other forms of media constantly tell her twenty-four-hours a day, seven days a week that Black men are “Triflin’ no good niggers who ain’t shit”?

How can a woman from a single parent home follow the leadership of a man when she’s been programmed from birth to be the leader in the relationship?

Because of this faulty social engineering, most Black women’s relationships fail. That’s why over 70 percent of you are still single.

Sistas, get your mind right. You can’t find a good Black man when you’ve been fed bad information about Black Men from the day you were born.

Sistas, understand that you’ve been conned. Hoodwinked and Bamboozled by White Supremacists, White Feminists (lesbians) who want to maintain an enmity between the Black man and the Black woman. Who sell you a fantasy of an unattainable Black man so you won’t work with the real men in your community towards improving the quality of life in your homes and your neighborhoods. People who understand the easiest way to conquer a people is to divide them.

70 percent of single Black women running a Matriarchy of single parent homes help keep White Supremacy in power. That keeps 100 percent of the community oppressed. This won’t change until a majority of Black women break away from the White Supremacist brainwashing and come together with real Black men to get their community back on course.

The Power of a Man's Position

What is Position? Basically where a man stands in life. This intangible place can make or break a man and shape who he becomes in the future.

The position a man stands in life is where he gets his power from. That’s why it’s important for a man to never lose his position. When a man knows where he stands he can set a direction for his life. Men who know their position control their own destinies and control their own lives. They are not afraid to go for what they want, pursue their goals, and achieve their dreams.

A man can lose a job and not lose his position.

A man can lose a woman  and not lose his position.

A man can lose all of his money and still not lose his position.

Even if a man loses all those material things as he still has power and control over himself. And as long as he has that power and control over himself, he can always start moving towards the direction he wants to go in.

However, if a man moves out of position, he loses his place in the world.

I dare to say that it’s better for a man to die than to lose his position.

Why? Because a man who loses his position loses his direction in life. Instead of being a leader, he becomes a follower.

A man without position is a man stranded in a secondary station in life. Forever waiting for someone else to tell him what to do, how to live and how to think. Instead of being in control he’s the one who is controlled by others.

A man without position is a man without face. A man without identity. Someone who has no idea of who he is or what he stands for. Someone who doesn’t stand out from the crowd. Someone the world forgets.

He’s the guy who waits for life to happen to him. The guy who is commanded by others, not the one who takes command. A man who isn’t respected or appreciated. Someone who life passes by.

Position is one of the most important things in a man’s life. Especially when it comes to courting the opposite sex.

That’s why it’s important for a man to NEVER lose position in front of anyone, especially a woman.

When a man loses his position with a woman he loses their respect. And when women don’t respect a man, they don’t regard him as someone whose leadership they have to follow. He’s the guy who never gets taken seriously by women. Over time women turn the table on these kinds of men and eventually become the leaders of the relationship.

Men who lose their position with women eventually wind up becoming pawns of women’s games. They’re the guys who wind up being manipulated and lied to, the guys who get cheated on, and the guys who wind up paying for babies who aren’t theirs.

Basically, the men without position become Simps, Manginas, and Tricks.

Men, it’s important to know your position in life. When a man knows where he stands he can set a course for his life. He can start walking towards the goals in life he wants to achieve and taking steps to achieve them.

Position is not about money, race or class. A poor Black man who knows his position in life will be more successful than the rich White man who doesn’t.

Why? Because the rich man without position won’t know where stands. And when a man doesn’t know where he stands he doesn’t know where he’s going. Sooner or later he’s going to wind up lost.

While the poor Black man who knows his position will be moving in the direction that will take him where he wants to go. Sure, it may take him a little while longer to get where he’s going, but eventually, he will wind up at his destination in life.

A man who knows his position and the power of it knows who he is and what he stands for. He plays the game of life on his rules and by his terms.

A man who doesn’t know his position just winds up getting played.

Men, know your position. And when you define that place in life, stay in it. The man who knows his position is the master of his own fate and controls his own destiny.

Shawn’s advice to President Barack Obama

In the aftermath of President Barack Obama’s disastrous performance with Mitt Romney in the debate Shawn offers this advice to the President of the United States:

MAN UP.

Seriously, Mr. President You come across as WEAK and SOFT to the American people. In the past four years you haven’t expressed the traits of a leader of the free world. You’ve shown the traits of a BITCH.

And that’s how the world sees you. As a spinless, soft cowardly male who doesn’t take a stand for anything. You try to accommodate those who aren’t accommodating of you.

With those kinds of people there is no pleasing them. STAND UP TO THEM. Better yet CRUSH THEIR ASSES INTO FUCKING DUST.

You have the power. But you’re too afraid to USE IT.

And that’s why a weak Mangina like Shit Romney got the better of you. Why the hell didn’t you mention that 47% comment of his? If I were running for president I would have hammered the shit out of him on that point and brought up how Bain Capital just recently sent American Jobs to China.

Mr. Romney would have been scurrying out of that debate hall when I got through with him.

But because you’re afraid of hurting feelings and offending people, you just sat their silent spouting facts and figures. That may make you appear intellectual, but smart people don’t win elections.

Al Gore can tell you that. So can John Kerry.

Spouting facts and figures and giving details on proposed plans articulately isn’t going to spark the passion among voters that gets them out to the polls. No, for that you need to have fire. Heart. The testicular fortitude to come from your soul to look Mitt Romney in his eye and call him on his bullshit.

Here’s something Shawn learned way back during his tour of duty in Park West High School Mr. President: People aren’t going to like you. And sometimes there’s nothing you can do to make them happy.

In those cases, FUCK EM’. Take your respect.

Don’t try to please them. Don’t try to make them happy. Because trying to please and accommodate others is giving your power away.

Mr. President, you need to start taking a more aggressive approach to your leadership style. All throughout your Presidential term, you’ve let people walk all over you. Everyone from two bit Congresspeople to a female governor who put her finger in your face. People just see you as a joke.

And we don’t need a court jester in the White House. We need a Real Man to be the President of the United States. With the country in the fifth year of an economic crisis we need some LEADERSHIP.

Someone to navigate this ship through rough waters. Someone who will get 535 bickering children in line. Someone who will let corporate America know if it keeps outsourcing jobs like Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital does to China they can kiss those American tax breaks they get goodbye. Someone who will create the policies that will allow for real job creation that sustains a middle class, not bullshit service sector jobs in retail that are engineered to turn over in just a few months. Someone who has their eye on the prize enough to try to avert this coming student loan crisis and save the next generation from being a permanent underclass.

As the Chief Executive of the government, you set the tone. You set the direction. At the end of the day you’re responsible for the state of this Union. You sign off on the policies that govern this country.

Mr. President, it’s time for you to MAN UP. Either Come hard or be prepared to go home. If what you presented two weeks ago your best then you need to do better. Step up your game. America is counting on you.

Comic Book Character Deaths are NOT NEWS!

Just recently I read a New York Daily News article detailing the death of Marvel Comics Professor X.

I really wish newspapers would stop wasting time reporting on junk like this. Because it isn’t news.

Professor X has died twice already. It wasn’t news then. And it isn’t news now.

Forty years ago a comic book death meant something. When a character like Bucky, The Green Goblin, Gwen Stacy or Barry Allen died it meant something. It had an impact. Readers felt it for years on end and the ramifications of that death impacted dozens of stories in between.

In today’s comic book world death means nothing. In two or three years a character who was “killed” in the pages of one comic book event is miraculously bought back in another to save the day. It’s nothing more than a plot device meant to shock readers and drive up sales.

That’s why it’s not news.

Objectively looking at the major comic book universes of Marvel and DC, every character has “died” practically once or at least twice in some major event storyline over the past 30 years.

Do all those deaths warrant an article in the newspaper?

HELL NO.

Comic book characters aren’t people. They’re properties owned by multi-national billion dollar corporations. When editors like Dan Didio have death lists on their desks for major story events it shows how little value the lives of these fictional characters have to their corporate owners.

Death in modern comics is nothing more been a gimmick used to drive up sales of a struggling book. A last ditch effort to force people to take notice of a title that’s about to go on the cancellation block or a character who’s popularity on the wane.

It’s attention whoring 101.

I find it funny that in all these news reported “deaths” of comic book characters none of the women get the big press. When Wasp, Jean Grey, and Sue Dibney died as part of recent comic book events like Secret Invasion, Warsong/Endsong and Identity Crisis there was no big page spread for them in a daily newspaper detailing the events of their demise.

No, those just came and went with no fanfare.

Even when an Iconic American female character like Wonder Woman was killed off in the pages of a John Byrne in the 90’s run there was no big media blitz talking about her demise the way they had national news blitz for the death of Superman a few years earlier at the hands of Doomsday.

I also find it funny that in all these news reported “deaths of African-American characters aren’t announced. Bill Foster the first major Black superhero characters created by Stan Lee. When he died in the pages of the Civil War event it just came and went.

But the death of Captain America was front page news for that event.

I guess women and minority comic book characters aren’t newsworthy. But that’s another story.

I really wish news outlets stop reporting on nonsense like this. It trivializes the craft of journalism.

Forty years ago the death of a comic book character in a comic wasn’t reported in the newspapers or on TV news broadcasts. Smart newspaper editors knew it wasn’t news.

And they were right.

That’s why the death of a character had an impact on the reader. That’s why people cared about the deaths of those characters when they read comics. That’s why those stories had an impact that lasted for years.

And that’s why people just roll their eyes about death in comics today.

If I were an editor-in-chief at a comic book company I’d put a moratorium on the deaths of major characters.

The death of a major character has been done so much in comics it’s lost it’s sting. It’s become a cop-out device for writers who can’t figure out an organic way to conclude a story. Can’t find a way to make this story have an impact on the reader? Just kill someone. That’ll shock the audience.

And if that doesn’t work then show graphic gory details of that death. Mutilations, decapitations, blood, blood blood. That’ll make people pay attention.

It’s hackneyed half-assed writing. And a good writer can do better than that. Even with a deadline.

There has to be a better way for the comic book industry to make the front pages of a newspaper. Because the death of a major character is not news. Comics coming back to Wal-Mart is news. Comics coming to Target is news. Comics coming back to a Supermarket chain like A&P or Ralphs is news.

Professor X dying for the third time in 40 years? That’s not news. Find another way to get attention for the 32-page floppy books.

Is It Possible To Sell Over 200,000 Comics Today?

I’ve been told that sales of 200,000 comics is undoable. That sales of 250,000 units is impossible.
That comics are a niche product catering to a small audience. That the best a comic can do is 70,000-100,00 units.

I think many in the industry think too small.

I do believe it’s possible to sell 200,000 copies of a single title of a comic. If Harry Potter, Twilight and the Hunger Games can sell over a hundred million copies to a broad audience of men, women and kids, in this technological age then why can’t it be possible for a comic to do so?

After all, comic book trade paperbacks are sold in the same venues as comics. Places like Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com. And some Barnes & Nobles sell comics. And this is in addition to being sold in comic shops. So why can’t the industry move 250,000-300,000 units a month of a single book?

The only thing keeping the comic book industry from achieving those numbers is content.

And the truth is that the content in most comics today just isn’t good enough to grab the attention of the casual readers.

Good content has nothing to do with continuity, access points, issue numbers, or any other technical term comic fans throw at you as an excuse for bad storytelling. That long-drawn out history was there in the 1970’s and 1980s. Yet people had no problem discovering comics and collecting comics.

Most kids in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s started in the 100s 200s, 300s and 400s of some longer-running titles. Others started in the middle of an over reaching arc.

But what kept them reading and collecting were the stories. They were good enough to get the attention of everyone. They well-written compelling, and even fun. People wanted to read them again and again until the cover fell off They liked them so much they bought another copy. And if they really liked them, they wanted to share them with their friends.

It was that good storytelling that built the demand for comics that led up to the boom of the mid 1980s and early 1990s. There was so much good well-written content out there that it overshadowed the mediocre and subpar books. In fact at one point during the 1980s there was so much great content many people missed out on a lot of great titles!

Good stories build a word-of-mouth among readers. It’s that word-of-mouth that gets customers trying out new books. It’s that word-of-mouth that gets people buying new comics searching for back issues with earlier stories. It’s that word of mouth that builds anticipation for the next issue.

The problem is there aren’t enough good comics out there today. Most of the great, well-written comics are buried under piles upon piles of really terrible comics. Books featuring popular characters but filled with awkward expository storytelling, inept art, and extremely slow pacing.

It’s hard for the good books to generate the word-of-mouth among casual readers because they can’t find them among the poor quality books featuring popular characters.

For all the pats on the back today’s comic book fans, give a lot of today’s comic artists and publishers, they just aren’t producing a good enough product.

The goal of a good publisher is to build up demand for a title. To get the readers excited about discovering what’s great about that title or buying that next book in the series. And that’s not being done.

People are so busy focusing on technical issues that they’re forgetting the one thing that sells at the end of the day: STORY.

A story is not an event. It’s not a gimmick. It’s not a new costume, or yet another spin on an origin. Those are elements of a story, but not the real thing.

Stories have beginnings middles, and ends.

Comics are tell stories in 20 pages. Comics sell stories in 20 pages. That’s how a book builds the word-of-mouth to sell the next issue. That’s how a book builds a following that has customers demanding their local retailer order the books. And it’s how the industry builds an audience outside of the comic shop.

If a publisher can’t tell a story, then they can’t sell books. Whether it’s print or digital, it’s content that’s going to drive the demand for a comic. And if the content isn’t good enough it’s not going to get the word of mouth to expand the audience to sell the 200,000 copies or 300,000 copies that’ll get large retailers interested in stocking comics on their shelves or linking to where they can buy a comic.

Is it possible to sell 200,000 copies of a single comic or more? Yeah, it is. The content just has to be compelling enough to build a demand for those comics.